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No Little League World Series for Ugandan Team

Ivan Matovu, 13, practiced with his coach, Okello Benard. Ivan is the starting pitcher for the Rev. John Foundation Little League baseball team. The team's visa applications to travel to the United States were denied.Credit
Tadej Znidarcic for The New York Times

For nearly two weeks, the players of the Rev. John Foundation Little League team from Kampala, Uganda, believed they were headed to Williamsport, Pa., for the Little League World Series. The team of 11- to 13-year-olds, which plays with donated equipment, was the first African team to advance that far.

But their fairy tale story ran smack into United States immigration red tape. The players and their coaches learned this week that at least some of the team’s visa applications were denied by the State Department. The Little League World Series, which begins Aug. 19, will proceed without them.

“It is unfortunate, as we were very much looking forward to welcoming the first African team to the Little League Baseball World Series,” Stephen Keener, president of Little League Baseball and Softball, said in a statement.

The Ugandans were tripped up by their country’s inconsistent infrastructure and the United States’ strict requirements for travel visas. The State Department did not give specific reasons for the denial, but it told Little League officials that there were discrepancies in the players’ documentation. In Uganda, birth certificates are far from the norm, and establishing someone’s age and identity is complicated because parents and guardians are often illiterate.

“It is a difficult situation, I won’t deny that,” the State Department spokesman Mark C. Toner said Friday at a news briefing. “But you know, these cases are adjudicated by consular officials who look very closely at all the appropriate data, and they make their decisions based on that.”

The Ugandan children play baseball because an American — Richard Stanley, a part owner of the Trenton Thunder, the Yankees’ Class AA affiliate — helped introduce the sport to the country eight years ago.

“This would have been huge for kids all over Africa,” Stanley said Friday. “This is a great opportunity to expand the sport. All these kids want is an opportunity to go out and play. They have the talent. They don’t have the facilities.”

Jay Shapiro, who has been following the team for two and a half years while filming a documentary, “Opposite Field,” said in a telephone interview from Kampala that the players were crushed when they heard the news and that the embassy employee who told them on Wednesday was so upset “she had tears in her eyes.”

The team had come agonizingly close to qualifying a year ago, beating Saudi Arabia in a qualifying tournament in Kutno, Poland, but Shapiro said they lost the next day to Kuwait and lost the tournament because of a tiebreaker rule. This year, it beat Saudi Arabia on July 16 and returned to Kampala full of hope about a trip to the United States.

Shapiro said the State Department was right to question the players’ documentation, which he called incomplete. Documenting birth is not a simple process in Uganda, Shapiro said. Birth certificates are scarce, especially in the countryside. Many children are not born in hospitals. Some of their parents are illiterate, and in many cases the people raising the children are not their birth parents. A year ago, Little League officials asked Shapiro to gather the necessary documentation and oversee the process when the team qualified for the tournament in Poland.

This summer, Shapiro was not in Uganda. He had wrapped up the film after last season, but he and his crew flew back to Kampala after the team qualified for the World Series to add to the film. He said after the visas were denied, he looked at the players’ documentation and found it incomplete.

Photo

Coach George Mukhobe, left, and Richard Stanley, far right, with the Rev. John Foundation Little League baseball team in Poland.

“Last year’s team, I’m 100 percent convinced of the legitimacy of that team,” Shapiro said. “This one, I couldn’t say I was 100 percent convinced. The paperwork was sloppy. In reality, they shouldn’t have even been allowed to go to Poland in the first place. This should have been caught earlier.”

Before granting a visa to travel to the United States, the American Embassy requires interviews with each child and his parents. If any of their answers differ from what is on the paperwork, it is considered a discrepancy.

“I don’t think any of them were deliberately trying to give false information,” Shapiro said. “They were just mistakes. But the result is the same. And I don’t disagree with their decision.”

Toner, the State Department spokesman, said he did not know how many of the players were denied visas.

“It’s unclear to me whether it was a preponderance of the kids, so that the team was no longer viable, if you will, or whether every individual on the team was denied,” he said.

Stanley said he hoped Little League officials would appeal to the State Department, but Pat Wilson, the vice president for operations for the Little League, said that would not happen.

“We are going to respect their decision,” he said. “We don’t think it would be appropriate for us to call into question their determination.”

Wilson said there was no precedent for a team’s qualifying for the Little League World Series but failing to gain entry into the United States. He said a few teams have had last-minute hitches in the process, but all were worked out.

Stanley said he considered it a major setback to his efforts in Uganda. He became involved eight years ago after visiting the country for a United Nations economic development program and said he had spent more than $1.5 million building facilities and setting up a program. He said he paid for the team to travel to Poland for the qualifying tournament in 2008, in 2010 and again this year. He said each trip cost about $35,000.

He said his goal was to build sports schools that emphasize academics and athletics.

“When I talked to the minister of sports, he asked me, ‘Can we win at this sport?’ ” Stanley said. “That’s what they care about, because they can’t win at anything. They have great talent there, but I told them: ‘You have to teach the kids. And those kids will play all day long if you give them the opportunity.’ ”

Shapiro said Little League should require teams attempting to qualify for the World Series to go through a preliminary visa approval process so that there are no last-minute disappointments.

“It’s a shame,” Shapiro said. “Their country isn’t ready for this. The schools aren’t ready. The parents aren’t ready. The only thing that’s ready are the kids and their talent. They will make it one day, and if there is anything positive out of this, it’s for people to realize what wonderful things are happening with these kids. They’ve got their own little world growing here.”

A version of this article appears in print on July 30, 2011, on page D1 of the New York edition with the headline: No Little League World Series for Ugandan Team. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe